Loto Quebec was one of the first provincial lotteries in Canada to launch its own online gambling website. The idea was that Loto Quebec’s online casino portal would obtain some of the revenue lost to illegal gambling website, improving the lottery’s profits. However, recent results have shown that Loto Quebec’s revenues are down.
According to a financial report, Loto Quebec has lost 4% in profits over the course of the beginning of the year. During the first 88 days of 2011, the company made $882 million compared to the $916 million it made during the same period of time last year.
The lottery’s new espacejeux gambling website brought in an additional $4.5 million. While the launching of the website proved to exhaust a great deal of time and financial resources, it paid off, as the profit gap would have been even wider if not for the website’s profits.
According to report, the only sector of Loto Quebec’s gaming roster to see improvement was bingo. Bingo generated an additional 5% in revenue, bringing in over $8 million for the first half of 2011.
Revenue from lottery products declined by 5.1%, dropping to $427 million in 2011. Video lottery terminals also saw less revenue, bringing in only $242 million, while casino revenue dropped by 4%.
Should this downward trend continue, Loto Quebec will have to depend more on its online offerings in order to compensate for lost land-based gaming revenues.
